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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25438813">What Are You Going To Do? Kill Me?</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/KyraDragon/pseuds/KyraDragon'>KyraDragon</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Teen Wolf (TV), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Character Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Pre-Slash, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 07:27:01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,127</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25438813</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/KyraDragon/pseuds/KyraDragon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Oh, come on, is that supposed to threaten me? We’ve literally been killing each other all day.”</p><p>“And yet you keep regaining function of your mouth.” The wolf spat out.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>136</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The year was 1098 and Stiles never thought he would sign up for a war, but here he was. He was young, healthy, and the hunters needed more numbers against the werewolf army. The werewolves were monsters, every hunter knew that. They were savage, had no morals, and were just frankly animals. Animals that had to be put down, any and every way possible. Stiles’ mom was killed by werewolves before the war began, and his dad was off fighting as well. He hadn’t seen him in a few years, but the letters were still coming in, so Stiles knew his dad was still alive. </p><p>The crusades started two years ago, but the fighting started long before then. While the Catholic Church fought their Crusade, Stiles and the hunters fought their own. It was harder for the hunters, as the wolves didn’t originate from a single area, but lived all over Europe and were able to create more numbers with the help of the Alphas. </p><p>He loved fighting for his home and for the innocent. He did surprisingly well during training, and his sword skills were benefitted by how fidgety he was. He was always fidgeting with something, tapping his fingers, shaking his legs. His mind just didn’t turn off. He’s told that will help him in combat, but Stiles supposes he’ll see once he’s in combat. Which is coming. Soon. </p><p>He was sitting in a horse-drawn carriage now, strapped in metal, heavy armour. His sword was in its sheath between his legs. He was surrounded by his fellow countrymen, all trained by the hunters. All hand-picked and taught how to take out those dogs of wars. The monsters who killed his mom and left him to take care of his dad for years before his dad found his calling. </p><p>The carriages could fit about twenty men or women each and they were in a caravan of them. His carriage was closer to the front, and they had another full day of travel left to go to get to Andalos. They had left England two days ago, had to travel by sea over the English Channel for most of the first day, and Stiles didn’t know what was worse: having to real with the rock of the boat, or crammed into small boxes with 19 other men. Normally he wouldn’t mind being crammed against his fellow man, not that he would ever tell the church or the hunters that, but this was different. There was no intimacy, no passion. They all wanted to be back home, but also wanted to face whatever was coming. They had to stay in their armour during the travels, “just in case,” as the hunters said.</p><p>They were heading down to Sevilla, Andalos, where there had been many rumours that a large pack of wolves had gathered. They got the information from a huntress, Kate, who bragged about seducing a pup in order to get information. Honestly? It turned Stiles’ stomach. He hated the mongrels, don’t get him wrong, but still…a kid was a kid, right? Stiles shook his head to try to clear it, gathering some looks from the other young fighters he was with. No. He couldn’t think that way. A werewolf kid was not a kid, no matter the age. A werewolf was a monster to be put down. </p><p>On the eve of the next day, the caravan finally stopped and in hushed tones, they were instructed they would be continuing on foot and to remain as quiet as possible. Stiles filed out with his troop and gathered in the rows they all formed. They must have marched for what felt like hours, and Stiles was tired of being on high alert. They tensed at every animal rushing around in the bush, every bird that shoot the leaves of the tree as it took off. </p><p>And then, as if it would never come, they got to the row of houses they were looking for. They all held their breath, wondering what to do next, as most of them had never seen combat before, let alone raided a whole family, er, pack, of wolves before. </p><p>It was Kate, the hunter mistress from before, who took the initiative. She approached one of the larger houses and before Stiles could really process what was happening, set it a blaze with the wolves still inside. The fire spread quickly and mercilessly.  It wasn’t a minute before he heard the first screams from those inside, and then the chaos started.</p><p>The first few wolves came running out of the houses, and the shout was given to charge. Stiles grabbed his sword from his hip and rushed in with the troop, letting his training take over. The fire was spreading to other houses, wolves were rushing out of houses and out of the woods. Some were in full shift: larger than life wolves of all shades of pelt, while others stayed in what was called beta shift, where they had fangs, pointed ears, and a lot more facial hair, while others came running out of the house didn’t shift at all. Stiles thought it odd, but he didn’t have must time to think at all before it was sword against claw. </p><p>He came face to face with a young man, couldn’t have been more than a few years older than himself. He had glowing blue eyes, a sign he was a killer, and the thickest eyebrows Stiles had ever seen. But he also had fangs. Large, sharp fangs. Stiles raised his sword, “Hey there, wolf,” he taunted, “blue eyes, huh? How many innocents have you killed?” </p><p>The wolf only growled at him in return.</p><p>“Oh? Too many to even remember?” Stiles lifted his sword up, making sure the pointy end was facing the werewolf. “Or maybe you just don’t care to count.” Then the wolf charged at him. </p><p>Stiles swung across hard, but the wolf easily dodged him. If it wasn’t for his protective armour, he claws would have raked across his stomach. </p><p>“Come on you beast!” Stiles taunted again. This time it was Stiles to rush in first, faking a high swing before slashing low. He caught the werewolf in the arm, and the wolf howled in pain. Stiles felt a moment of triumph. His first-time drawing blood in combat! His dad would be so proud. He vaguely heard the sounds of war around him, flashes of light against armour, the sound of steel and growling, but he was focused on his prey. </p><p>“I heard you guys heal pretty quick,” Stiles said, “but that looks like it stings a little.”</p><p>The wolf finally spoke, his voice low and gruff, “Do you ever shut up?” And he charged again. </p><p>This time the werewolf came in fast, and Stiles barely had time to lift his sword upward before suddenly all he saw was red. The blood sprayed from his neck as the werewolf had grabbed his throat, with his teeth of all things. He was able to glance down and saw that, while the wolf may have ripped out his throat, he had managed to impale him through the chest with his sword. A life for a life. It may not have been much, Stiles thought as he fell onto his side, blood draining out of his neck, consciousness fading to black, but at least I got one of them, mom. And then Stiles died.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Stiles had dreams of the woods. Of running, feeling free. Then his dream suddenly shifted to the smell of smoke, the sight of a fire, the echoes of screaming, and his chest feeling like it, too, was on fire. </p><p>Stiles awoke with a start, groaning and coughing. He was slowly blinking his eyes open against the harsh mid-morning sun in his eyes. His head was swimming, but he was suddenly started by the <i>smell</i>. Oh god, the smell. He lifted his head and saw he was on a pile of corpses. By the looks of it, he was surrounded by dead hunter and werewolf alike and he just – he couldn’t – and then he threw up over the side of the bodies. He struggled to his feet, his body soar but his neck especially so. He reached fingers up and felt it, but it seemed fine. His fingers felt something hard and crusted, so he picked at it and pulled away, seeing the flecks of dried blood under his nails and on his hand. It made him want to vomit again.</p><p>He didn’t understand what was happening. He knew the wolf got him, but maybe it wasn’t that bad? A small amount of blood can seem like a lot when you’re pumped up full of adrenalin. Yeah, that must have been it. He was just hyped from battle and passed out from the sight of blood, not from the loss of it. </p><p>He stumped off of the corpses and wondered if his fellow hunters must have mistaken all of that wolf’s blood for his, assumed he had died fighting, and put his body along with the rest of the dead. Er – put his body among the dead. Yeah, that sounded better to Stiles. </p><p>He climbed out of the too shallow of mass grave and got his bearings. He was close to the compound of werewolf houses they had ambushed, and saw some bodies still left on the ground. It looked like they left mostly wolves still laying on the grass and dirt, but some looked human. He gave it a shrug and thought about his next course of action: water. He needed water. His throat felt so dry. He searched around and found one house not too damaged by fire, and they still had water in their cellar. He packed as many bottles as he could gather in his bag and headed out of the house. He didn’t want to stay around the dead any longer than he had to. </p><p>He headed off into the woods, going what he hoped was the direction of home. It was going to be a very, very long walk but he’d never get there if he never started. </p><p>A sound to his left got his attention and he turned just in time to see a wolf…no…that wolf coming out of the trees holding what appeared to be berries. He looked up and was obviously started. Stiles, having seen the wolf first, acted before the wolf could and threw a knife straight into the wolf’s head, between the eyes. He watched as the wolf’s body dropped to the ground with a loud thud and he sighed with relief. He could have sworn he got that wolf through the chest last time he…he…”He’s moving!” Stiles yelped out suddenly, “oh god the wolf is moving!”</p><p>And right before his eyes, the dagger pushed its way out of the werewolf’s head, clattered on the floor, and the werewolf was lifting his head. </p><p>“Demon!” Stiles yelled out, flailing his arms but frozen to the spot. </p><p>The werewolf lifted his head and growled, eyes shifting from hazel green to bright blue, and in a blur slashed Stiles across the chest with his claws. Stiles collapsed on the ground and felt himself choking on his own blood before he passed out.</p><p>He laid on the forest floor for forever, but for no time at all. His eyes shot open and he coughed up some blood. He lifted his head, peering around, and slowly started to get up when he saw he was alone. </p><p>“What the fuck?” Stiles asked himself and no one in particular.</p><p>He knew he had died that time. He was paying attention to it.</p><p>“What the fuck? What the fuck? What the fuck?” He just kept chanting. He was giving his body a once over but while his clothes had claw marks on them, his pale skin was unmarked. </p><p>Then he heard the growling and looked up to see the glow of blue among the trees.</p><p>“Oh come on dude not again – “ Stiles was cut off when his throat was ripped out, a second time that day, and he fell to the floor. </p><p>The next time Stiles awoke, he had expected it and already had his hand creeping to the knife at his belt. He rolled over onto his feet quickly and managed to gut the werewolf before the wolf could land a claw on him. As the werewolf lay bleeding out, Stiles caught a single word from his lips: murderer. </p><p>Murderer?! Him?! No no, he wasn’t a murderer! The werewolves were the murderers. </p><p>And then without warning the wolf was looking up at him, blinking once, twice, and then was growling at Stiles with killer intent. The claws came out and caught Stiles in the ankle, tearing at the tendons there and Stiles crumped to the floor. He managed to get out, “You’re the murderer!” before the werewolf had a hand through his stomach. </p><p>One beat.</p><p>Two beats.</p><p>And Stiles was groaning as his stomach regrew itself. He saw the wolf looking at him angerly. </p><p>“I’m not a murderer.” The wolf bit out.</p><p>“Bullshit,” Stiles groaned, “You have blue eyes, that means you’ve killed an innocent.”</p><p>Stiles didn’t even realize he died again. </p><p>When he was conscious, he heard, “You people kill the innocent.” Before Stiles got a lucky slash in and got the werewolf. </p><p>“Werewolves are not innocent.” Stiles bit back when he knew the werewolf was awake again. He was about to strike again when he heard, “There were humans in that house.” And he hesitated, which caused his death.</p><p>Over the course of the next few hours, Stiles and the wolf proceeded to kill one another, or each other, again and again. Over and over. They got bits of conversation here and there. The wolf told Stiles to shut up on more than one occasion, Stiles told as many dog puns as he could remember. Eventually, they just wore each other out. </p><p>“So,” Stiles panted, leaning his back against a tree, clothes covered in blood but where his stopped and the wolf’s began he had no way to tell, “what’s your name?”</p><p>The wolf gave him an incredulous look.</p><p>“What?!” The boy felt the need to defend himself.</p><p>The wolf just growled lowly. </p><p>“Oh, come on, is that supposed to threaten me? We’ve literally been killing each other all day.”</p><p>“And yet you keep regaining function of your mouth.” The wolf spat out.</p><p>Stiles was startled.</p><p>“Was…was that a joke?” He hesitated to ask.</p><p>“No.”</p><p>“That was! That was totally a joke! The wolf’s got some humour in him!” </p><p>“Shut up.” </p><p>“Or what? You’ll rip my throat out? With your teeth? Been there and done that Sourwolf.” Stiles turned his head to look at the fading sunset. The oranges hitting the blues in the sky just right. Normally those colours clashed but at certain times, like right now, the two conflicting forces just…clicked. </p><p>“Derek.” </p><p>Stiles turned his head to face the wolf again. “What?”</p><p>“My name. Is Derek.”</p><p>“Mieczysław,” Stiles said, “but you can call me Stiles.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Stiles and the wolf, Derek, he supposed, made an uneasy truce. They weren’t sure why they couldn’t die, and the point of freaking out about it had long passed. Stiles would stay on his side of the world while Derek would stay on his. The problem, Stiles learned a few years later, is that he couldn’t age. Not only would he heal to any and all wounds, so he couldn’t go back out into the battlefield for fear that his fellow hunters would catch on and accuse him of witchcraft or devil’s play, but he also worried that people would start to notice his lack of aging. </p>
<p>A year had passed after he met Derek that the First Crusades ended, with heavy losses on both sides. He had stopped getting letters. ( ~ 1099 ~ ) </p>
<p>He stayed home for three years after that, but then people started to notice. They would make comments about how young he still looked, how well he aged, how he didn’t look a day older than when he left to go to the Great Hale Battle as it came to be called. Although he knew the truth: there wasn’t as much of a battle as it had been a massacre. The hunters had killed most of the wolves while sleeping in their beds, using fire or the smoke of it to take out most of the forces, and killed any strays that came out along the way. Stiles stopped seeing glory in it before he had even gotten back home. </p>
<p>So, after four years of living quietly at home, content to be alone with his memories of his mom and dad, he packed up what he could carry, touched the mantle one last time, and walked out of the house he had called home for 22 years. ( ~ 1102 ~ )</p>
<p>Where he planned on going? He had no idea. So, he just started walking. He travelled the English countryside, meeting people but never being able to connect with them. He hoped that he would be able to return home, that maybe he just aged very slowly like the wolves tended to do, but after ten years of roaming as a nomad ( ~ 1112 ~ ), he realized with dread that no, he wasn’t aging slowly, he wasn’t aging at all. He wasn’t sure when he decided it, but Stiles decided he wanted to die, and spent the next five years attempting to make that happen. ( ~ 1117 ~ )</p>
<p>He tried beheading. Pain in the neck, but didn’t work. Snake venom. Nada. Drowning. He hated that the most. Fire. That just left him craving a nice, cooked roast. </p>
<p>Stiles couldn’t die. But he couldn’t live, either. Any place he decided to settle, he had to leave within a few years for fear of being found out and being deemed a witch. </p>
<p>It was the year 1135 AD when he found out there was something worse than death: being caught. He was captured by an evil man named Gerard, who worked for the church and had noticed Stiles from years prior when he had lived in another part of the country. He captured Stiles and tortured him, demanding to know the secret to eternal life. </p>
<p>“Tell me!” Gerard demanded as he punched Stiles in the face once more. </p>
<p>“If I knew, do you think I’d really tell you?” Stiles asked. He knew sassing the old man would only get him more pain, but he couldn’t help it, it was in his blood. </p>
<p>Gerard started coughing, then hacking into his arm. Stiles thought he spotted blood when the old man pulled his hands away. </p>
<p>“Ah.” Stiles said, knowingly. </p>
<p>That earned him another finger. Stiles cried out in pain as it was taken from him using a knife that he was pretty sure had rust on it. Infection. Tried that, too. It hurt like a bitch healing but didn’t leave him dead.</p>
<p>“Do you ever shut up?” The old man asked, and Stiles had the audacity to laugh at that.</p>
<p>“You know, I’ve had a very grumpy man ask me the same thing. He even tried cutting out my tongue but – “ Stiles clicked it for good measure, “that didn’t work, either. You know, cancer. That’s got to be horrible way to die. Not that I’ll be able to experience it.” Stiles gave a sigh, “I can’t actually do that to myself so guess I’ll never know.” </p>
<p>Gerard got angrier and approached Stiles to sneer in his face, and that was his fatal mistake. As Gerard got close, Stiles kicked his legs up and wrapped them around the bastard’s neck, giving a quick jab to the right with his hips, and snapping his neck in the process. Stiles dropped the man’s body and hung there for a minute, looking at his tied wrists. </p>
<p>“Oh, this is going to suck.” Stiles sighed and began using the ropes around his writes to slowly, agonizingly, saw his own wrists with the rough rope. He estimated it took more than twelve hours to do, given he was racing his healing factor and own exhaustion. He hadn’t been very well taken care of by the old man during his two-year stint here, and it was only when Gerard was getting desperate that he got sloppy. ( ~ 1137 ~ ) </p>
<p>After his wrists had healed, he made a very important decision, one that would affect his life for the rest of his days: after 57 years, he decided to leave England. </p>
<p>He decided to track himself a wolf.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It had been 39 years since he last saw Derek and figured the man could be literally anywhere. Well, Stiles figured he had time to look. He started in Andalos, since that’s where he had meet Derek, and had heard Derek speaking some Spanish during their kill fest years ago. </p><p>Stiles started with the Spanish werewolf population, but it was difficult because wolves hated him for being human, and he couldn’t exactly tell them who he was looking for, since he assumed Derek went into hiding like he had for the same reasons.</p><p>“He has, I don’t know, eyebrows you could have a conversation with!” Stiles tried explaining to one of the wolves he found willing to actually talk to him. </p><p>The young she-wolf just cocked her head like he had lost his mind. </p><p>He spent 15 years in the region, learning the languages, appreciating the culture, but finally giving up. ( ~ 1152 ~ ) </p><p>He travelled through France and its neighbouring countries for 12 years. ( ~ 1164 ~ )</p><p>Stiles wondered if one could die of loneliness. </p><p>He travelled the lands, watched countries rise and fall, saw land exchange hands and rulers murder for the sake of the good of their people, or themselves. Every now and then he would hear rumours of a tall, quiet man (or wolf, depending on whom he was hearing the rumours from) who was a nomad. Never stayed in one place very long. An Omega. A wolf without a pack. <i>El lobo solitario</i>. </p><p>Stiles lived to chase those rumours. </p><p>He even thought he caught site of Derek once, in Poland. He saw a man smile out of the corner of his eyes, and he was pretty sure his heart stopped for a full minute before he whipped his head around but the other man was gone. The year was 1230 AD and Stiles was 150 years old. </p><p>After that, Stiles gave up hope. He spent his nights drunk and his days asleep. He didn’t want to think because when he thought he thought about everything he had lost. He didn’t want to dream because when he dreamed he thought about everything he’d never have. He watched the world crumble around him, and he couldn’t find the strength to care. He stopped caring about people, he couldn’t care about himself. He celebrated his 200th birthday cutting his own throat. Again and again. Hoping one time it would stick. ( ~ 1280 ~ )</p><p>He spent his 250th birthday hunting a bounty, anything to keep him active. He had stopped trying to kill himself and stopped trying to drown out the noise, but instead elected to just keep himself busy. He stopped caring who he was hunting so long as it paid well. But he stayed out of the werewolf communities. He refused to take a wolf’s life to repay the ones that were taken. ( ~ 1330 ~ )</p><p>Then, in the year 1347 AD, came The Black Death. Stiles saw the death and decay around himself. He felt like a single man, standing upon a pile of bodies, helpless to stop it. He felt he had to do something, anything, and so he threw himself into helping others, ones who couldn’t help themselves. The poor and the dying.  </p><p>He watched as young children died alone in the streets, or how entire families were torn apart, and all his mind could go back to was the bodies he had found that very special morning. After. Kate had wiped out entire families in that fire. Had left children to die or had killed them herself. Wolf children, or human children born to wolves, she didn’t care. Stiles had spent some time over the course of his life talking to any wolves who would bother giving him the time of day and he learned. He learned the horrors of the hunters and what the war had really meant. He was taught to hate people for nothing. And on a good day it made him feel sick to his stomach. On a bad day, he tried to bring himself the same pain his trope of hunters must have brought those wolves. </p><p>Stiles was tending to a young girl in Rome, Italy. She had matted black hair, which Stiles assumed would have been lovely if she wasn’t sick. She was the last surviving member of her family and she couldn’t have been more than 10 years old. Her family were fishermen and had little to no savings. She couldn’t afford a regular doctor but lucky for her, Stiles didn’t charge for his services. On December 23rd, 1350 AD in a back alley hospital Stiles had set up six months prior, a breath tickled his ear and a foreign but oh so familiar voice spoke to him from behind, “I think this one is getting better.”</p><p>He whipped his head around so fast he pondered for half a second if he managed to snap his neck, but then he was looking into those hazel green eyes he hadn’t seen in 252 years. </p><p>“Derek.”</p><p>“Mieczysław.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Mieczysław,” Derek said back, looking back at him just as intently. </p><p>Stiles could have groaned if he wasn’t so damn relieved to find the wolf he had been looking for, who found him once he had stopped looking. Those eyebrows, still has big as ever. Those bunny teeth, just peaking through the man’s upper lip. </p><p>“Follow me?” Stiles asked, in a voice so tender he was worried it cracked. </p><p>Derek didn’t answer but Stiles was eased when he saw the man following behind him as they went into his makeshift office. The second the door was closed, Stiles broke into a sob. </p><p>“You.”</p><p>“Me.” The wolf confirmed.</p><p>“You.” Stiles said again. “I was looking for you.”</p><p>“I know.” </p><p>“Wait,” Stiles looked up, suddenly seeing red. “You knew?! It’s been, what? 250 years! And you knew I was looking for you?!”</p><p>Derek just watched the man intently. </p><p>“What? Were you going to just let me keep searching for another 250 years before you decided to show up?! How could you know?!” It seemed more of a demand than a question. </p><p>“I’ve known since about 1230.” Derek responded.</p><p>“How?!”</p><p><i>“El lobo solitario</i>. You weren’t exactly being subtle about it, Mieczysław.”</p><p>“Stiles.”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“I told you you could call me Stiles.”</p><p>A feint blush crept over the werewolves face and up his ears. “I, uh, may not have remembered that name.” </p><p>“You remembered Mieczysław but not Stiles?” Stiles couldn’t believe it. The wolf just remained quiet. “So…” Stiles hesitated, finally calming down. “You let me just search for you?” </p><p>“No.” </p><p>Stiles waited for more but when it didn’t come, he flailed his arms in the general direction of the man. “No…?” He tried to coax. </p><p>“No, I didn’t just let you search.” </p><p>Stiles drew his lips together, bunched his eyebrows together, and squinted.</p><p>“You wouldn’t stay still.” Derek said.</p><p>“Huh?”</p><p>“Every time word in the werewolf community spread that some ex-hunter was searching for a particular wolf with, I believe they said, ‘eyebrows you could hold a conversation with’ and I would follow the lead, you had moved on.” </p><p>Stiles half choked on a sob and a laugh. </p><p>“Would, uh, would you like to have dinner?”</p><p>“Depends,” Derek said, “can my eyebrows do the talking?”</p><p>Stiles brought Derek back to his place, which was nothing fancy and definitely wasn’t expecting company. As soon as Stiles let them in he was busy picking up clothes from the floor and tossing them into a single corner of the room. He apologized at least five times before he finally heard Derek say, “Mieczysław!”</p><p>“Huh? What?” Stiles halted what he was doing.</p><p>“I said it’s fine.” Derek repeated. “Just sit.” And so Stiles sat.</p><p>“Seriously, you can just call me Stiles.” </p><p>“It feels weird.”</p><p>“What do you mean?” Stiles arched an eyebrow.</p><p>“In my head, I have been calling you Mieczysław for so long. ‘Stiles’ just feels weird.” </p><p>“Oh…” Stiles let the word drag out and just hang in the air. </p><p>One beat.</p><p>Two beats.</p><p>“What have you been doing?” Stiles asked awkwardly. He always hated silence, but this was deafening. </p><p>“Doing?” Derek asked.</p><p>“You know,” Stiles gestured vaguely around. “With your life.” </p><p>“Oh…” It was Derek’s turn to trail off.</p><p>Stiles hated the silence. It felt heavy and awkward. </p><p>“As you can see, I didn’t stay on my side of the world!” Stiles blurted out and caused Derek to lift his head. “I totally broke the rules! Remember? We agreed on a truce to each stay on our own sides of the world and I totally broke that rule!” Stiles’ heart could have stopped right then and he would have been happy with it, for that actually got a smile out of the wolf.</p><p>“I’m glad you did.” </p><p>The two men spent hour into the night catching up. Stiles cooked and rambled. God did he ramble. And not just about what he had been doing since the Hale Battle, but told Derek all about his mom, his dad, the letters, when they stopped. He tried to tip toe around his depressive episode…okay, depressive decades, but Derek wouldn’t let him. Stiles was halfway through finally telling Derek about his 200th birthday when Derek just grabbed him and held on. Stiles didn’t realize how close to tears he was until he broke down on the other man’s shoulder. He sobbed and yelled and hit Derek. Derek just stayed put and let him release hundreds of years’ worth of loneliness and anger out. </p><p>Then it was Derek’s turn. Derek told Stiles how he didn’t have a home to return to, so he spent years trying to find another pack, but could never stay for long. He told Stiles how he lived as a wolf in the woods of France for a few decades, but never went feral. Stiles tried to get out of him how he managed to stay human, but Derek refused, and then told Stiles that “I’m never human.” Which got Stiles to stop trying to pry it out of the werewolf. </p><p>It was close to 3:00 a.m. by the time exhaustion hit them both. </p><p>“Will…will you stay?” Stiles asked timidly, having stood up and with his body half turned towards the bedroom.</p><p>“For…?”</p><p>“…ever.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you so much for reading! I hope you liked it. Feel free to visit me on Tumblr at https://staffofoppression.tumblr.com/</p></blockquote></div></div>
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